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Comment by christophilus | Hacker News Reader

I’ve decided to leave the Apple ecosystem in 2021. But the problem is not isolated to Apple. In fact, I’d be surprised if other, cheaper products aren’t quite a bit worse.

Is there an electronics company that does a better job? (That’s not a rhetorical question.)

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Even if a phone is made 100% in US or Europe, the raw materials for it like Cobalt is probably not immune to other types of human rights abuse: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/dec/16/a...

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/oct/12/p...

Sadly true. Years ago, I watched a brutal documentary on a mine where the life expectancy of the workers was insanely short. Their primary industrial clients were electronics manufacturers. I don’t know what I can do, though, as programming is my living.

I like the suggestion of always buying used goods. But obviously, a secondary market still encourages the primary market. It’s not a perfect solution.

Just take care of what you own and don’t needlessly buy additional electronics.

Apple is one of the better ones in a sea of really bad. It's a low bar and certainly doesn't mean Apple is perfect. There might be some boutique phone makers who claim to be better like Librem or Fairphone, but because they have fewer resources than the big players it's much harder for them to really know.

And if you dig into the mining side of the rare earths, worker conditions drop quickly.

This is the big problem. Few of these companies have the resources to verify their supply chain is free of abuse. The smaller companies likely have even less control over their supply chain.

And supply chains aren’t necessarily constants. They can flip overnight when some distant vendor lights the contract on fire after the audit is complete by switching to a cheaper source, pocketing the difference. The most newsworthy instances often involve steel and catastrophic failure. People in this comment section saying that Apple executives should be held criminally liable have a very naive understanding of how long the tentacles of the supply chain go for anything made with more than a few raw materials.

I believe, a good guess, this company is forced to take these laborers.

The CCP calls the shots and if you own the company you have to go along or become one of the prisoners.

The CCP even has the forced laborers in a parade. They have their hands on it from start to finish.

One way to punish them is to simply buy less. Upgrading electronics is usually superfluous.

Fairphone is your best bet with smartphones, but I'm not sure if there's similarly ethically produced hardware of other types.

Fairphone have dozens of suppliers in China, some of them indirect, and they say in their own literature they can't directly vouch for every company in their supply chain.

They're in exactly the same boat as Apple. IMHO this is about China, not any one company.

Lack of perfection does not mean you should give up everything.

Oh absolutely, they work very hard on this and deserver a lot of credit for it, but then so do Apple. They have some of the strictest policies and most thorough inspections in the industry and this still keeps happening to them.

I don't think it's comparable no. The effort put by Fairphone to build an ethical tech company is not comparable with what apple have been doing. There's a lot of information on their website and it's worth to have a look: https://www.fairphone.com/en/impact

I mean, Apple also has a lot of information on their website and it's also worth looking at: https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/

They also have annual reports for the past few years just about this.

And Apple are also the highest rated tech company by Greenpeace for environmental issues after Fairphone.

That's quite strange given what they have been doing with repair:

http://www.ibtimes.com/apple-airpods-repair-recycling-imposs...

https://www.iphoneincanada.ca/news/apple-sues-canadian-recyc...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18144489

Repair is only a factor because it contributes to device longevity, but iPhones have the longest average device lifetimes in the industry by a long way. In theory they could make it even longer but it's a relatively marginal issue in environmental terms. I agree there are other reasons that make it desirable as well and every little helps, but the fact remains iPhones have industry leading overall environmental impact.

“..researchers found that brand, an intangible property, is more important than repairability or memory size in extending the life of a product.”[0]

The article found that Apple phones last on average a year longer than Samsung’s.

[0]https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181016142434.h...

Another estimate puts Apple device lifespans at 4 years 3 months.[1]

[1]https://www.zdnet.com/article/iphone-ipad-mac-heres-how-long...

The average for all smartphones is estimated as from 2 to 3 years, but bear in mind that includes many Apple devices, so non Apple devices must average the low end of that.[2]

[2]https://www.coolblue.nl/en/advice/lifespan-smartphone.html

> but iPhones have the longest average device lifetimes in the industry by a long way

After iPhones are not supported anymore they turn into bricks. This typically happens in 5 years, which is not too bad, but it's far from being perfect. Why should a smartphone be supported for much shorter than laptops? Remember: reduce, reuse, recycle, in this order.

Librem 5 GNU/Linux phone has a lifetime support with updates.

> After iPhones are not supported anymore they turn into bricks.

Where on Earth do you get that from? My iPhone 3GS could still connect to the App Store after 7 years. My wife’s iPhone 6 from 2014 just got a patch in November.

Look, I’m not going to assume bad faith, maybe you really believe this or thought it seemed true to you. When your preconceptions turn out to be this dramatically contrary to the actual facts, I seriously suggest you take a look at what it is about those preconceptions that is leading you so far away from reality.

I see comments like this all the time. Apple devices have built in redundancy, yet in fact they have industry leading device support and lifetimes. Apple is an arch polluter, yet over here in reality they have the highest environmental rating from Greenpeace of any major smartphone vendor. Where do people like you get this stuff, and why? What is it that’s motivating you to say these things that are so clearly wrong and we easily disproved?

> but there’s nothing that will brick them

You simply should not use a smartphone without security updates. It's as good as a brick in this case. (Or maybe never use Internet and Bluetooth on it).

So which OS or phone are you going to go with? Google only guarantees 3 years of support. Fairphone 2’s last OS update was 14 months ago, there’s no way that’s up to date with security issues so their track record is looking pretty dicey. After all they’re dependent on Google as well. Even if they do eventually get another update there’s no way a 14 month gap between security patches is acceptable. Fairphone only actually guarantee 2 years of support anyway.

So what phone do you use that can beat the iPhone 6 with 6 years of regular patches?

Did you actually read my replies above? I quote myself:

Librem 5 GNU/Linux phone has a lifetime support with updates.

The operating system is PureOS (Debian derivative). All necessary patches are upstreamed.

> Where on Earth do you get that from?

First link in DDG: https://www.statista.com/chart/5824/ios-iphone-compatibility...

> My iPhone 3GS could still connect to the App Store after 7 years.

Connection to App Store does not mean it's actually supported with patches or secure to use. I would call it "a brick".

> My wife’s iPhone 6 from 2014 just got a patch in November.

But the new OS is not going to be installed anymore (according to the link above). Any technical reasons for that, apart from the planned obsolescence?

> Look, I’m not going to assume bad faith, maybe you really believe this or thought it seemed true to you. When your preconceptions turn out to be this dramatically contrary to the actual facts, I seriously suggest you take a look at what it is about those preconceptions that is leading you so far away from reality.

Thank you, I am also assuming good faith and so could you please provide evidence for your claims? For how long do security updates typically come and for how long the OS is updated to new versions? Anecdotes are not enough on HN.

> industry leading device support and lifetimes

In the industry of planned obsolescence 5 years support becomes a gold standard praised by fanboys. But in reality it is very short and leads to nature pollution. I see no reason not to support devices forever or let the community support them when they are too old. Apple does neither of those.

> things that are so clearly wrong and we easily disproved?

Your words are very strong yet you give no (reliable) disprove.

Apple has official repair locations all over the planet and they stock parts long after products are discontinued. Yes it kinda sucks that they killed third party repair but having an official location with official parts is actually more useful than being able to do it yourself but not being able to get parts.

For my pixel 2, while there were no technical restrictions preventing me from replacing the broken camera, the screen was glued in in a way making it very difficult to open without smashing. There were also no places to buy the camera other than what seemed to be cameras stripped out of broken/stolen pixel 2s.

> while there were no technical restrictions preventing me from replacing the broken camera, the screen was glued in in a way making it very difficult to open without smashing.

You just presented a technical restriction, didn't you?

> but having an official location with official parts is actually more useful than being able to do it yourself but not being able to get parts.

I disagree. This is not so much about DIY-repairs, but about a free market for third-party repairs, without which Apple can force people to pay as much as they want.

I recently went for an iPad repair, they asked me to do a replacement instead of repair.

> Yes it kinda sucks that they killed third party repair...

Just had the screen on a 2018 iPad replaced by a third party. Worked out fine.

Is 3rd-party repair “killed” only for the latest Apple devices by virtue of some new hardware attestation stuff?

Fairphone is also about being fair to its user, e.g. with available spare parts.

How’s the privacy on a fairphone? The same as regular android?

They ship regular Android, with bootloader locked, although they provide instructions on how to unlock.

You can buy Fairphone without any Google stuff: https://esolutions.shop/shop/e-os-fairphone-3/.

There is also Librem 5 USA, but it's $2k: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5-usa/.

It’s not really made in the US is more that they inspect the parts and clip them together in the US and that costs them $1000 for some reason.

Did you read the link? It's manufactured in the US. The other version of Librem 5 which is made in China and assembled in US costs $800: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5.

Honestly i never felt the ecosystem to be that great, its just the same shit others are doing in a walled garden way. I am sure you will be fine finding your own stack

Would you consider only buying a used/refurbished phone/computer? Obviously it’s not scalable to the masses, but not putting any money in Apple’s pocket directly

I only buy used phones. But I rarely buy used computers / monitors. Those are my bread and butter, so reliability matters.

Yea understandable, I’ve had great experiences with refurbished MacBooks for what it’s worth

There’s the fairphone

https://www.fairphone.com/en/

The least harmful thing you can do is to only buy refurbished devices and to use them for as long as possible before replacing them.

You'll have to choose to get off the constant upgrade carousel.

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